


Questions and Answers

by itsfaberrytaboo (orphan_account)



Series: Wide Green Eyes [8]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Age Play, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Bigs and littles are known, F/F, Fluff, Non-Sexual Age Play, mentions of wetting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-07-16 01:28:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7246705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/itsfaberrytaboo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You didn’t know before?” </p><p>Shit, Natasha thought, her brow creasing. She thought she’d been doing a good job of showing it…</p>
            </blockquote>





	Questions and Answers

**Author's Note:**

> I had initially decided that I wasn't going to write ageplay anymore because I felt ashamed of it, and I almost orphaned all of my works here that had any ageplay elements. 
> 
> But honestly, I enjoy writing it, and so here we are. Consider this fic slight ageplay, with me dipping my toes back in the water.

“I’m not doing it.”

“Well, don’t look at me, the only dramatic monologues I want to give are when I’m encased in armor.”

“I’ll do it.”

Three heads swiveled in shock, in the direction of the voice that surprisingly wasn’t Cap’s, but Natasha’s.

“I think she’s sick,” Tony said slowly. “I think she’s sick, or do you think Maximoff got into her head again? Maybe she got into my head again. Is this all a dream? Or would that be a nightmare?”

“I will take one of your plastic arms and beat you to death with it.”

“She’s fine,” Tony amended. “Although I personally am deeply wounded at the idea I would ever use plastic.”

Natasha rolled her eyes and folded her arms over her chest, glaring at the three men who were still looking at her in confusion.

“ _What_?”

“Can you blame us for being a little surprised?” Steve said reasonably with a shrug. “You’re the last person I’d ever expect to volunteer for something like this.”

“More like you’d have to be dragged in kicking and screaming.”

“In case you guys have forgotten, I’ve spoken on Capitol Hill.”

Clint leaned back against his chair, resting his feet on the table. “Capitol Hill is a lot different than a classroom full of new recruits. _And_ you weren’t talking to the suits about being little.”

Well, that much Natasha could agree with. Defending her friends – her family – from delusional lawmakers was a lot different than potentially holding a question and answer session with a bunch of new SHIELD agents about what it was like to be a little in a bonded relationship.

But Natasha had known when Maria asked them to think about it that morning that Clint wouldn’t do it. Tony definitely wouldn’t; he’d had enough of his life being under constant scrutiny. Steve would do it, if only because he was Captain America and they all knew that the idea of Captain America being a little would leave everyone a bit awed, slightly dreamy about what life could be like if they were little, or in search of a little of their own.

For Natasha to volunteer… that was strange.

Stranger still was the fact that she actually… _wanted_ to do it.

“If Tony won’t do it and Clint won’t do it, that just leaves you and me,” Natasha pointed to Steve. “And Cap, you haven’t been little for very long.”

“You haven’t either.”

It wasn’t judgmental, but kind – and it was also the truth. Natasha nodded at him. Of the four of them, Clint had had his little headspace the longest. Next had been Tony, _then_ Natasha, and _then_ Steve. Natasha had been in the space of a two-year-old for the better part of a year, but even she wondered if that was long enough for her to consider being an “expert” on it.

“You’re right, I haven’t been little for that long,” Natasha agreed. “But I also think I’m slightly more comfortable with it than you are. Only slightly.”

“I could still do it,” Steve said to her as they walked towards the training room. He’d been pestering her to spar for days, and Natasha was finally the right combination of annoyed and amused to oblige him. “I mean it’s not so different to waking up and finding out I’d been a popsicle for seventy years.”

“From a fossil to an egg. Aw. That’s adorable.”

Steve narrowed his eyes at her, and Natasha only grinned, sauntering ahead of him.

“Are you _sure_?” Maria asked her later that night.

Natasha gave her a small grin, from her position laying on the couch with her head in Maria’s lap.

“No,” she admitted. “But it could be interesting.”

“I’m not sure interesting is the word for it.” Maria stroked her hair, pausing to tug teasingly at the blanket Natasha held in her hand.

Natasha grumbled and pulled the blanket closer to her chest. She was half-in, half-out of her little headspace, in a dreamy sort of mood where everything felt different and safe at the same time. She was warm in a new pair of soft pajamas covered in little rainbows and smiling suns. One of her hands was slipped just under Maria’s shirt, the back of her fingers touching her girlfriend’s skin as Natasha clung to the silky fabric. She was full from the dinner she’d made Maria that evening, and the lights were low in the apartment, giving everything a clouded, gentle sort of atmosphere. It was in these moments, just before bedtime, that Natasha felt most comfortable letting herself be little.

“How hard can it be?” Natasha wondered.

Maria’s hand had resumed its gentle ministrations through Natasha’s red curls, and Natasha hummed happily, closing her eyes.

“Recruits are a lot like high school kids, honestly. Excited and they want to know everything, so they don’t really have any sort of filter. And you’re kind of notorious, in case you didn’t know.”

“Notorious. I like the sound of that.” She lowered her voice a little, till it was almost a purr. “Do _you_ think I’m notorious, baby?”

Maria tapped Natasha’s forehead with her finger; Natasha made a face and shoved her hand away.

“I think you’re not considering what it might be like. There could be some questions you’re not prepared to answer.”

Natasha shrugged. “Then let’s practice.”

“What?”

She opened her eyes and looked into Maria’s own. “Ask me some questions,” she challenged. “Then I can be prepared, at least a little bit.”

“Er, okay…” Maria thought for a moment, and Natasha felt herself grow a little drowsier, a little warmer.

“Ooh, ooh! I have a question! Black Widow! Black Widow!”

Natasha let out a long-suffering, exaggerated sigh. “Yes, annoyingly over-eager brunette in the front?”

Maria chuckled. “What was it like when you first bonded with Director Hill?”

Okay, Maria was right, _that_ question she hadn’t been prepared for. Maybe this had been a bad idea after all; she hadn’t realized that the new recruits would probably want to know everything about _Black Widow_ being _little_. Nor was Natasha all that ready to share what that night had been like for her. She shifted onto her side, wrapping the arm that wasn’t clinging to her blanket around Maria’s waist.

She felt memories come flooding back, felt herself become a little panicked, a little fuzzy around the edges of her mind. She pressed her face into Maria’s stomach and took a breath that came out more shuddery than she would’ve liked.

“Hey.” Maria’s hand found the small of Natasha’s back, holding there gently. “Nat, let Cap do it.”

It’d be so easy to just call him up and tell him that she didn’t think she could do it. That she didn’t think she _should_ do it. There were some cards Natasha wanted to hold onto, she didn’t want to show her hand just yet. She wasn’t ready for all of her secrets to be revealed. Maria had to play it carefully, in her public appearances and in television interviews. Everyone always wanted to know what life was like, being bonded to the infamous Black Widow.

For her part, Natasha never really made herself available for questions. Maria was always careful: hedging, dodging, finally just simply stating that she had a job to do and Natasha knew what hers was as well. She’d say they were in love, that they were working hard to make their way in the world they’d found themselves in. A world where they were building a relationship at the same time they were rebuilding SHIELD.

It was messy, Maria had said to Natasha one day. But she wouldn’t change a thing.

She wanted to be able to say that, Natasha thought sometimes. Not to Maria, because Maria knew how Natasha felt. It was whispered into her ear, when they were naked and laying together deep into the night. Pressed to her lips in the morning while Maria stood at the stove in one of Natasha’s shirts and made breakfast. Smoothed out on the blankets when Natasha found herself doing ridiculous things like making the bed because Maria liked things neat.

The way Natasha felt about Maria Hill was also many times sat in her lap, as they played with dolls. Or curled into her arms while Natasha drank sleepily from a bottle. Held in Maria’s hand as they walked through a store picking out diapers, or blankets, or toys.

The way Natasha Romanoff felt about Maria Hill made her want to free it from the confines of walls.

“No,” Natasha said, her voice muffled. “I want to.”

She took another breath, rubbing her cheek against Maria’s shirt. The gesture, for some reason, had always brought comfort.

Natasha remembered her trainer that night, the triumphant smile on her face. The taunting way she had spoken, Russian rolling off her tongue and into Natasha’s ears, as familiar as bullets.

 _I guess you are not made of marble after all, are you, little one_?

Little one.

She remembered how her gun had faltered. Her widow’s bite felt useless. She remembered the rage that had coursed over her, the laugh her trainer had given when Natasha had attacked.

The look of death when Natasha was made an assassin once again.

She remembered the quinjet. The world fading into terrifying shades of black and white. Wetting herself. Clint’s worried voice.

_Nat? You okay? Nat. It’s all right, we’re gonna get Laura. Mom – Laura can help._

“I guess I was tired,” Natasha said. “Or maybe it was time for me to realize who I was. Maybe it wasn’t time but she got to me and I couldn’t help it. But I’ve never been scared like that, and my entire life I was trained that fear wasn’t even possible.”

Maria’s hand was making soft circles on Natasha’s back, and Natasha nuzzled further into her, as if she wanted to absorb the woman’s protectiveness, her care.

“Clint and Laura tried to help but all I could think was I had no control. I was embarrassed and I was trying so hard to be big. I didn’t want to be little, because they always needed someone to do things for them, to take care of them. I’m the Black Widow, I don’t need to be taken care of. I take care of _myself_.”

She moved again so that she could look up at Maria, and wasn’t surprised to see the first beginnings of tears glimmering in her lover’s eyes. Natasha smiled a little, clutching at her soft flannel blanket and grasping at Maria’s shirt again.

“Everything happened at once. I destroyed the person who’d made me into what I used to be. Then I was little? Then I was in the jet, and then I was at the farm, and even though I love Laura, everything felt different and _so big_ , like I was Alice in Wonderland and I’d drank the potion and shrunk myself.”

Maria had been reading it to her; they’d discovered that when Natasha was little she loved stories before bedtime.

 “I wanted to get _out of there_ and not feel so small. But I wanted somebody to hold me, too. And I’ve never wanted that. I didn’t understand.”

Natasha quieted for a moment, remembering. “And then you walked in.”

“And then I walked in,” Maria said, leaning down to kiss Natasha’s forehead.

Natasha knew that Maria knew all of this; she’d been there, after all. But they’d never really talked about how that night had been, for _Natasha_. She knew Maria had been terrified, knew that her girlfriend was still terrified about whether she was being the friend, the lover, the caregiver that someone like Natasha Romanoff needed.

But neither of them really knew how Natasha had felt.

Natasha flexed her fingers, letting herself slip slightly under, a bit further into her little headspace. It was easier, she’d found, to talk about how she felt when she was smaller.

“I liked you,” she confessed softly. “You make me feel safe, and I—“

“Wait,” Maria interrupted. “Even before?”

Natasha nodded, feeling herself flush a little. “Before little. When m’big. You always seemed to care so much about all of us, and sometimes I’d wonder what it’d be like if you cared about me… a little bit _more_.”

“I always wondered what it would be like if you knew I thought about you _a lot_ more than the others.”

Natasha grinned and reached up to take Maria’s hand; they tangled their fingers together and she held fast.

“Clint’s mommy tried to help,” she said with a shrug. “But she’s … not _my_ mommy. Not who I wanted. Then you were there,” she added.

“Then I was there.”

“But I didn’t want you to see me like… I was big, Mama. I can be big girl.”

“Shh,” Maria soothed, and Natasha slipped a little further. Maria understood; she knew the battle that went on the former assassin’s head every time she was reminded that she was sometimes a little girl.

“You can be a very big girl, but I’m proud of you when you’re big and little. And that night you needed to be little.”

“Uh-huh.” Natasha nodded. “Wanted pacifier, but I was scared you’d laugh at me.”

“I’d never, bunny.”

She’d been so sweet, Natasha thought. So gentle and loving, even though things were a little awkward. Maria had thought _she_ was little, which Natasha understood more than anything.  But the one thing she remembered above all else that night was the patience in Maria’s eyes, how the other woman had been so worried about _her_. The logical side of Natasha that night knew that any other person would’ve been irritated at being dragged out of bed to tend to an agent who had been reduced to peeing herself and chewing on her fingers.

Instead, Maria had knelt down next to her, looked deep into Natasha’s eyes, and asked a little girl to trust her.

“Mama gave me pacifier,” Natasha said, toying with Maria’s shirt.

“Yep. You wanted it all along, didn’t you, bunny?”

“Mm-hm. An’ then I felt weird.”

“Weird like how?”

Like nothing was ever going to be the same. Like everything had changed, like the warmth spreading through her arms and her chest and down to her toes was going to take over until everything was warm, until everything that was the shattered world around them would be gone.

And there would be nothing but Maria, always Maria, always _Mama_ , and Natasha…

Natasha would be okay. More than okay.

“Like even though I was scared I was safe. Like Mama not let anything happen to me.”

“You know I won’t let anything happen to you, if I can help it.”

“I know.” Natasha nuzzled against Maria’s side, where she knew the scar of a bullet hole marred the otherwise smooth skin of the woman she loved. She also knew that they wouldn’t be able to keep each other safe forever, but damned if Natasha wasn’t going to try.

She lightly poked Maria’s belly. “’nother question, Mama?”

She felt near tears, whether it was from remembering or the fact that she felt so incredibly small at the moment. Either way, Maria seemed to always know when Natasha’s thoughts and feelings needed a break.

“Okay… favorite thing to eat when you’re little?”

Natasha grinned. “Peanut butter and ‘nana sandwiches. With honey!”

“How’d I know that was going to be your answer?”

“’cause you’re smart. And mama’s favorite food is tortellini with cheese.”

“That’s a big word for such a baby bunny. But you’re absolutely right. Do you want another question?”

She nodded, hard. This was kind of fun, maybe.

“Let’s see… what’s something you really want to do when you’re little?”

Natasha thought for a minute.

“Birthday party,” she finally said quietly. “I’ve never had one.”

“What?” Maria shifted Natasha so that she was sitting up, and she looked at her, her brow furrowed in confusion and surprise.

“Never?”

“Never.” Natasha shook her head. “I’ve seen them on television, though?” She bit her lower lip, suddenly a little shy.

“It looks fun, Mama. Cake and toys and balloons… an’ maybe Clint could come, and Steve, and Tony an’ Jemma. Sometimes they have games? A-and I don’t even wan’ presents, Mama. Just… party.”

They didn’t get parties where Natasha used to be. She tried not to think about that, tried not to remember that she hadn’t even known when her birthday _was_ until she’d checked her file. Parties were for babies, not for girls made of marble. And maybe Clint and Steve or Tony and Jemma wouldn’t even _want_ to come to a party.

“Is silly,” Natasha decided then. “Don’t need it.”

“Hey.” Mama was looking at her with a soft expression, and she tucked one of Natasha’s bright red curls behind her ear. “Do you _want_ a party?”

“Yeah,” she said, and Mama hugged her.

“Maybe that needs to be added to our list, then.” She gave Natasha that small, secretive smile that told her little girl Mama’s “wheels were turning” in her mind, and Natasha grinned.

Maybe it wasn’t so silly after all.

Natasha yawned, feeling sleepy and happy, and Mama nestled Natasha’s head close to her heart.

“Do you want a bottle before bed, bunny?”

“No,” she said. “M’not tired.”

“You sure about that? Because I think you just yawned.”

“You’re hearing things.”

Mama laughed. “You’re so stubborn,” she teased. “I tell you what, why don’t we go get in bed and we can read another chapter of Alice? Or maybe we can rock Yulia to sleep, what do you think?”

“Yes!” Natasha said. “Yulia very tired, she needs bedtime.”

Never mind that when her doll drifted off to sleep, so did Natasha.

The next morning, Natasha stood in the front of a classroom, full of new SHIELD recruits curiously staring at her, and wondered if she hadn’t made a really bad decision after all. Maria leaning against the back wall didn’t necessarily help things, either, but Natasha wasn’t about to tell her director to leave, girlfriend or not.

She’d thought about wearing her “work clothes,” but in the end decided that she wanted to look at least a little normal. So jeans and a sweatshirt it was, and she certainly didn’t want to look like a teacher, either, so she hopped up on the desk and sat.

The first few questions she refused to answer: about what it was like to be a former assassin, how much her life had changed since she’d joined the Avengers. Those things were private; those things Natasha hadn’t quite figured out herself. She knew her life before SHIELD, and she knew life after SHIELD. She just wasn’t sure if she’d exchanged one brutal organization for another. If what she was doing to try to be good would ever erase the red from her ledger.

“This is about being a big or a little,” she reminded the young women and men in front of her.

“What if you don’t like the person you bond with?” someone finally asked, and Natasha tilted her head, considering the question.

“I don’t think that’s actually possible,” she answered after a moment. “Look, I’m not someone who really believed in fate until it happened, but now I think there’s just something out there that matches you with the right person. Maybe you might not like something they do, but you’re supposed to love them.”

“What’s something the director does that you don’t like?”

“What, you expect me to answer that with her standing right there?” Natasha huffed, but she was smiling, and Maria’s eyes were twinkling, as everyone else laughed.

“Since she already knows, I guess it’s safe for me to say that I can’t stand it when she blows raspberries on my stomach while she changes my diaper.” Natasha’s cheeks felt hot; she hadn’t readily admitted – in public – something that intimate about herself. But if a few eyes widened in her captive audience, no one said anything.

“And it also irritates the hell out of me when she hogs the remote.”

“If I didn’t you’d watch Spanish soap operas all day.”

“All right, that’s enough of my secrets for today,” Natasha sassed back, but she was smirking. “Next question?”

“Do you ever wish you hadn’t bonded?”

Out of the corner of her eye Natasha saw Maria stiffen against the wall, and she sighed inwardly. Her answer had the potential to hurt her girlfriend, so she’d have to be delicate. Something that Natasha wasn’t really used to doing. She was blunt, to the point. She was _effective_. Neutralize the target. Get things done.

But this…

“Yes and no,” she said. “Yes because when she… when she got shot…” Natasha’s voice faltered, and she saw Maria start towards her. But she cleared her throat and held up her hand. Maria settled back against the wall again, her eyes worriedly trained on her lover.

“When she got shot,” Natasha began again, her voice stronger, “I didn’t know how to deal with how much that hurt _me_. It’s not like any of us get manuals on how to cope when our soulmate gets hurt. And now I’m terrified to let her go anywhere, since…”

Natasha paused for a second again, and looked to the back of the room to offer her girlfriend a sad shrug, and a half-smile.

“Since I’m afraid she won’t come back to me. So sometimes I wish we hadn’t bonded just so I wouldn’t have to feel like I don’t know what I’d do if she wasn’t here.”

“But you also said you don’t regret it.”

The small girl in the desk directly in front of Natasha was regarding her intently, almost as if she thought she could read Natasha’s mind. It was a little unnerving, but Natasha nodded anyway.

“It’s nice to have someone. It’s nice to know she loves me. And to know that I don’t have to be ashamed of being little. It’s just part of who I am, and in a way it’s part of who she is. We kinda fit. We just work together. She hogs the remote but she also makes sure I know it’s okay to be little. To be scared sometimes.”

“Yeah, that’s how I know I’m not little,” one man towards the back scoffed, his arms crossed over his chest.

“And how do you know that?” someone else asked.

“’cause I’m never scared. HYDRA won’t know what hit ‘em if they mess with me.”

Natasha rolled her eyes. In seconds she had flipped her hand out and sent the small notebook that had been in her back pocket flying, striking the man squarely in his forehead.

“Know what hit you?” she asked smoothly.

“Agent Romanoff,” the director said, with a hint of laughter tinging the warning in her voice.

“All right, fine.” She retrieved her notebook and then turned back to her target.

“Have you bonded yet?”

“Well, no.”

Her smirk widened. “Get back with me when you do. We’ll see how it turns out.”

She answered a few more questions, mostly rudimentary things about knowing when a person bonded with another, how they worked it if someone was feeling little but their partner didn’t feel like caregiving right at that moment, and other things that were astonishingly easy for Natasha to answer. There weren’t that many hard questions, either because Maria was still in the back of the room looking formidable in her suit, or no one else wanted a notebook to the head. Natasha was nevertheless relieved when Sam came by in full Falcon regalia to give the group a tour of the training rooms, and everyone excitedly filtered out, except the brunette girl who had watched Natasha so seriously throughout.

“Something up?” Natasha said to her.

“Yes,” she said, suddenly fidgeting nervously. She was so tiny the SHIELD-issued tee-shirt and pants seemed to dwarf her.

If she made it through the training, Natasha thought to herself, tactically, she’d be perfect.

No one ever expected the little ones.

“I just wanted to say, Miss Black W- Miss Romanoff! I mean, Agent Romanoff!”

“Whoa, relax,” Natasha said, feeling suddenly awkward. She leaned against the desk.

“You’re not gonna ask me for my autograph, are you? Because I’m just like you, you know.”

“Yeah, right,” the girl said. “You’re the whole reason I joined SHIELD.”

“What?”

She was hugging her backpack to her chest; it was half-unzipped, and Natasha caught a glimpse of the fuzzy ear of a pink stuffed animal just peeking out of it. She smiled to herself.

“I always wanted to join SHIELD. But then… I thought I couldn’t because I’m little. But if _you_ can be little and still be badass, then maybe I can too.”

“Well, now you know,” Natasha said. “I mean you’ll never be as badass as me, but you might get close.”

She gave her a wink.

“Yeah.” The girl grinned, her brown eyes sparkling.

“I can’t wait to tell my mommy.”

Maria waited until the girl had practically scampered out of the room before coming up to Natasha and enfolding her in a tight hug.

“You were fantastic. I’m glad I know how you feel about some things now.”

“You didn’t know before?”

Shit, Natasha thought, her brow creasing. She thought she’d been doing a good job of showing it…

“Shh.” Maria ran her thumb over Natasha’s forehead until her girlfriend’s expression relaxed. “Sometimes it’s just nice to _hear_. But…”

“But?” Natasha asked, steeling herself.

“Was the notebook slinging really necessary, Miss Black Widow?” Maria asked her, with a kiss to her lips.

“Oh, completely necessary, Miss Commander. I mean Agent Director. I mean Mama!”

She squeaked as Maria picked her up and carried her out of the room, towards the elevator that would take them to her office.

“Just for that, my baby bunny, I am so blowing on your tummy later.”

Natasha groaned.


End file.
